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Post by petrolino on Jun 17, 2017 22:35:28 GMT
'night, Mother' is a play written by Marsha Norman who was born on September 21st, 1947 in Louisville, Kentucky. Norman broke through with her play 'Getting Out' in 1977, launching the production that propelled Pamela Reed to stardom. 'night Mother' won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. The director of the play, Tom Moore, was known to horror fans for 'The Legend Of Boggy Creek' (1977). Norman expanded the play for Moore to make a screen version in 1986. The simple premise of 'night Mother' sees Jessie Cates (Sissy Spacek) explaining to her mother Thelma (Anne Bancroft) that she's suicidal. Jessie has epilepsy and experiences trouble dealing with relationships and human interaction. The original play starred Kathy Bates as Jessie and Anne Pitoniak as Thelma. Joan Crawford & Anne Bancroft
Sissy Spacek received one of her six Oscar nominations this same year for 'Crimes Of The Heart' (1986) which was also adapted from a play. Playwright Beth Henley was born on May 8th, 1952 in Jackson, Mississippi. Having completed the play in 1978, she submitted it to several regional theatres without success. It then got picked up by the Actors Theater Of Louisville. The play was first performed in February 1979 in Louisville, Kentucky. In the same year that Bates lost her role in 'night Mother' to Spacek, she lost her role in 'Crimes Of The Heart' to Diane Keaton (she'd later lose her role in Terence McNally's 'Frankie And Johnny In The Clair De Lune' to Michelle Pfeiffer). Sissy Spacek :
The filmisation of 'night Mother' demands a degree of patience but there's a powerful play at its core that's delivered by a pair of powerhouse players. The haunting musical theme is composed by David Shire. I saw this movie during my school years and it's stuck with me ever since. I'd like to see Robert Altman's television movie that was screened the previous year, 'The Laundromat' (1985), which is also based on a play by Marsha Norman. I highly recommend 'night Mother'. |
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Post by mcavanaugh on Jun 17, 2017 23:56:31 GMT
I highly recommend it, too, Petrolino. It's a compelling story with excellent performances by Anne Bancroft and Sissy Spacek, two actresses I'd watch in almost anything. Thanks for the background information and for bringing attention to this powerful film.
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Post by petrolino on Jun 18, 2017 0:00:29 GMT
I highly recommend it, too, Petrolino. It's a compelling story with excellent performances by Anne Bancroft and Sissy Spacek, two actresses I'd watch in almost anything. Thanks for the background information and for bringing attention to this powerful film. Thanks mcavanaugh. I like Anne Bancroft and Sissy Spacek too. I think I probably rented the video when I was young because I was trying to see all of Spacek's films I could get hold of. |
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Post by petrolino on Jun 18, 2017 0:01:03 GMT
From the '70s Stage to the '80s Screen
Stockard Channing (February 13, 1944, New York City, New York)
"I was always the new kid with this strange name".
- Swoosie Kurtz (September 6, 1944, Omaha, Nebraska)
"I remember Woody Allen saying, “Living with you is like walking on eggshells.” Why did he say that? I think because I had too much sensitivity. I was hurt by everything… [She mimics herself] “They didn’t like me,” “Why am I not good enough?” “I didn’t get the part.” Yes, neurotic."
- Diane Keaton (January 5, 1946, Los Angeles, California)
"Yes, I made a short film, 'Alkali, Iowa' (1995), with Mark Christopher. He's from Fort Dodge."
- Mary Beth Hurt (September 26, 1946, Marshalltown, Iowa), 'The Iowa Citizen'
Susan Sarandon (October 4, 1946, Queens, New York)
Christopher Walken & Glenn Close (March 19, 1947, Greenwich, Connecticut)
Bernadette Peters (February 28, 1948, Queens, New York)
"Being one of the tallest girls in school, I did all the boys' roles, including Caesar. We studied Latin and we had these Roman banquets and would do skits about Caesar and Mark Antony. My English teacher, Barbara Bannon, had just finished her graduate work at Catholic University. She would bring us to see the theater groups and have them come over to our auditorium."
- Mercedes Ruehl (February 28, 1948, Queens, New York)
“Being a family member is hard no matter where you are. It’s hard to be a kid, it’s hard to be a parent, it’s hard to be a brother or sister. It takes patience and kindness and forbearance. … There’s something noble about it, really, at the end of the day, to try to be a worthy member of a family, and I admired that.”
- Dianne Wiest (March 28, 1948, Kansas City, Missouri), The Kansas City Star
"I had a very interesting road in my training, because when I first decided to become an actor I was doing something else. I was very busy trying to become a dancer. I was dancing and rehearsing dances – dancers rehearse forever, they perform very little. Dancers are not really directed the way actors are. They learn the dance and go out and perform it. Nobody coaches you on the difference between rehearsing and performing. So, when I got on stage I had all these actors’ questions. What happens if I don’t feel like it? What is my relationship to the people on stage? What is my relationship to the audience? What happens if I forget something?
I began to do showcases in New York – off, off, off Broadway, in the Bowery, in horrible little theaters where there was usually some bum getting warm, or only my mother in the audience and the director. They were wildly melodramatic plays, and they required that I really throw myself in. With these questions – whether or not they were answered – it became clear what I needed to know. At that point I decided to go to acting class.
I went first to The Stella Adler Conservatory. I began to get a sense of what it was to simply put myself in imaginary circumstances and live truthfully in them. And I enjoyed the experience of what I was doing. I thought, well, wait a minute. I want to explore more about this, so I went and studied with Sonia Moore at The Stanislavsky Studio. This was a very different, much more formal approach, and one I didn’t always understand. I tried very hard, but it didn’t seem to be the school for me. Whereupon I went to the HB Studio. I liked it so much that I thought, now I really want to go to the top here. So I auditioned for Uta Hagen’s class and got in. That was really the beginning of my formal training. The others were explorations for me."
- Lindsay Crouse (May 12, 1948, New York City, New York)
Shirley MacLaine & Kathy Bates (June 28, 1948, Memphis, Tennessee)
Pamela Reed (April 2, 1949, Tacoma, Washington)
Tess Harper (August 15, 1950, Mammoth Spring, Arkansas), Patricia Arquette, Jessica Lange (April 20, 1949, Cloquet, Minnesota) & Sam Shepard
Sissy Spacek (December 25, 1949, Quitman, Texas) & Carrie Fisher (October 21, 1956, Burbank, California)
"I honestly prefer good material, good writing and a complex character. It doesn’t matter where because the techniques are the same. Jimmy Cagney used to say you stand there and tell the truth and that’s it. When I’m acting, I’m just being as honest as I can."
- Christine Lahti (April 4, 1950, Birmingham, Michigan)
“I’m very slow, but I eventually get where I’m going—even when it appears that I’m not going anywhere.”
- Amy Wright (April 15, 1950, Chicago, Illinois)
"I love to do comedy, and I don't think of things as drama or comedy. I think that if it's a funny line, it's a funny line. If it's a funny moment, it's a funny moment. I try to give all my characters a sense of humor, so I guess I feel like I have done comedy, but maybe I'm better known for drama. I loved the funny moments in "Edward Scissorhands," and I did lots of comedies when I started out in the theater."
- Kathy Baker (June 8, 1950, Midland, Texas), Los Angeles Times
Amy Madigan (September 11, 1950, Chicago, Illinois)
Mary McDonnell (April 18, 1952, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania)
Carol Kane (June 18, 1952, Cleveland, Ohio)
Amy Irving (September 10, 1953, Palo Alto, California)
"I'm hard to pin down. I tend to look different in films. I get recognised sometimes. But I just live my life. I get on the bus, I get on the subway, it's not a problem. I think of myself more as a character actor than that ingenue leading lady, who started out something like Michelle Pfeiffer, or Jessica Lange. I'm a bit quirkier than that."
- Joan Allen (August 20, 1956, Rochelle, Illinois)
Amanda Plummer (March 23, 1957, New York City, New York)
Frances McDormand (June 23, 1957, Chicago, Illinois)
Anna Paquin & Holly Hunter (March 20, 1958, Conyers, Georgia)
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